The First Violin Part 54

She fell upon my neck. She did not speak, and I, speechless, held her to my breast.

"You love him, Adelaide?" I said, at last.

"With my whole soul!" she answered, in a low, very low, but vehement voice. "With my whole soul."

"And you have owned it to him?"

"Yes."

"Tell me," said I, "how it was."

"I think I have loved him since almost the first time I saw him--he made quite a different impression upon me than other men do--quite. I hardly knew myself. He mastered me. No other man ever did--except--" she shuddered a little, "and that only because I tied myself hand and foot.

But I liked the mastery. It was delicious; it was rest and peace. It went on for long. We knew--each knew quite well that we loved, but he never spoke of it. He saw how it was with me and he helped me--oh, why is he so good? He never tried to trap me into any acknowledgment. He never made any use of the power he knew he had except to keep me right.

But at the Maskenball--I do not know how it was--we were alone in all the crowd--there was something said--a look. It was all over. But he was true to the last. He did not say, 'Throw everything up and come to me.'

He said, 'Give me the only joy that we may have. Tell me you love me.'

And I told him. I said, 'I love you with my life and my soul, and everything I have, for ever and ever.' And that is true. He said, 'Thank you, milady. I accept the condition of my knighthood,' and kissed my hand. There was some-one following us. It was Sir Peter. He heard all, and he has punished me for it since. He will punish me again."

A pause.

"That is all that has been said. He does not know that Sir Peter knows, for he has never alluded to it since. He has spared me. I say he is a n.o.ble man."

She raised herself, and looked at me.

Dear sister! With your love and your pride, your sins and your folly, inexpressibly dear to me! I pressed a kiss upon her lips.

"Von Francius is good, Adelaide; he is good."

"Von Francius would have told me this himself, but he has been afraid for me; some time ago he said to me that he had the offer of a post at a distance. That was asking my advice. I found out what it was, and said, 'Take it.' He has done so."

"Then you have decided?" I stammered.

"To part. He has strength. So have I. It was my own fault. May--I could bear it if it were for myself alone. I have had my eyes opened now. I see that when people do wrong they drag others into it--they punish those they love--it is part of their own punishment."

A pause. Facts, I felt, were pitiless; but the glow of friendship for von Francius was like a strong fire. In the midst of the keenest pain one finds a true man, and the discovery is like a sudden soothing of sharp anguish, or like the finding a strong comrade in a battle.

Adelaide had been very self-restrained and quiet all this time, but now suddenly broke out into low, quick, half sobbed-out words:

"Oh, I love him, I love him! It is dreadful! How shall I go through with it?"

Ay, there was the rub! Not one short, sharp pang, and over--all fire quenched in cool mists of death and unconsciousness, but long years to come of daily, hourly, paying the price; incessant compunction, active punishment. A prospect for a martyr to shirk from, and for a woman who has made a mistake to--live through.

We needed not further words. The secret was told, and the worst known.

We parted. Von Francius was from this moment a sacred being to me.

But from this time he scarcely came near the house--not even to give me my lessons. I went to my lodging and had them there. Adelaide said nothing, asked not a question concerning him, nor mentioned his name, and the silence on his side was almost as profound as that on hers. It seemed as if they feared that should they meet, speak, look each other in the eyes, all resolution would be swept away, and the end hurry resistless on.

CHAPTER x.x.xI.

"And behold, though the way was light and the sun did shine, yet my heart was ill at ease, for a sinister blot did now and again fleck the sun, and a muttered sound perturbed the air. And he repeated oft 'One hath told me--thus--or thus.'"

Karl Linders, our old acquaintance, was now our fast friend. Many changes had taken place in the _personnel_ of our fellow-workmen in the kapelle, but Eugen, Karl, and I remained stationary in the same places and holding the same rank as on the day we had first met. He, Karl, had been from the first more congenial to me than any other of my fellows (Eugen excepted, of course). Why, I could never exactly tell. There was about him a contagious cheerfulness, good-humor, and honesty. He was a sinner, but no rascal; a wild fellow--_Taugenichts_--_wilder Gesell_, as our phraseology had it, but the furthest thing possible from a knave.

Since his visits to us and his earnest efforts to curry favor with Sigmund by means of nondescript wool beasts, domestic or of prey, he had grown much nearer to us. He was the only intimate we had--the only person who came in and out of our quarters at any time; the only man who sat and smoked with us in an evening. At the time when Karl put in his first appearance in these pages he was a young man not only not particular, but utterly reckless as to the society he frequented. Any one, he was wont to say, was good enough to talk with, or to listen while talked to. Karl's conversation could not be called either affected or pedantic; his taste was catholic, and comprised within wide bounds; he considered all subjects that were amusing appropriate matter of discussion, and to him most subjects were--or were susceptible of being made--amusing.

Latterly, however, it would seem that a process of growth had been going on in him. Three years had worked a difference. In some respects he was, thank Heaven! still the old Karl--the old careless, reckless, aimless fellow; but in others he was metamorphosed.

Karl Linders, a handsome fellow himself and a slave to beauty, as he was careful to inform us--susceptible in the highest degree to real loveliness--so he often told us--and in love on an average, desperately and forever, once a week, had at last fallen really and actually in love.

For a long time we did not guess it--or rather, accepting his being in love as a chronic state of his being--one of the "inseparable accidents," which may almost be called qualities, we wondered what lay at the bottom of his sudden intense sobriety of demeanor and propriety of conduct, and looked for some cause deeper than love, which did not usually have that effect upon him; we thought it might be debt. We studied the behavior itself; we remarked that for upward of ten days he had never lauded the charms of any young woman connected with the choral or terpsich.o.r.ean staff of the opera, and wondered.

We saw that he had had his hair very much cut, and we told him frankly that we did not think it improved him. To our great surprise he told us that we knew nothing about it, and requested us to mind our own business, adding testily, after a pause, that he did not see why on earth a set of men like us should make ourselves conspicuous by the fashion of our hair, as if we were Absaloms or Samsons.

"Samson had a Delilah, _mein lieber_," said I, eying him. "She sh.o.r.e his locks for him. Tell us frankly who has acted the part by you."

"Bah! Can a fellow have no sense in his own head to find such things out? Go and do likewise, and I can tell you you'll be improved."

But we agreed when he was gone that the loose locks, drooping over the laughing glance, suited him better than that neatly cropped propriety.

Days pa.s.sed, and Karl was still not his old self. It became matter of public remark that his easy, short jacket, a mongrel kind of garment to which he was deeply attached, was discarded, not merely for grand occasions, but even upon the ordinary Sat.u.r.day night concert, yea, even for walking out at midday, and a superior frock-coat subst.i.tuted for it--a frock-coat in which, we told him, he looked quite _edel_. At which he pished and pshawed, but surrept.i.tiously adjusted his collar before the looking-gla.s.s which the propriety and satisfactoriness of our behavior had induced Frau Schmidt to add to our responsibilities, pulled his cuffs down, and remarked _en pa.s.sant_ that "the 'cello was a horribly ungraceful instrument."

"Not as you use it," said we both, politely, and allowed him to lead the way to the concert-room.

A few evenings later he strolled into our room, lighted a cigar, and sighed deeply.

"What ails thee, then, Karl?" I asked.

"I've something on my mind," he replied, uneasily.

"That we know," put in Eugen; "and a pretty big lump it must be, too.

Out with it, man! Has she accepted the bottle-nosed oboist after all?"

"No."

"Have you got into debt? How much? I dare say we can manage it between us."

"No--oh, no! I am five thalers to the good."

Our countenances grow more serious. Not debt? Then what was it, what could it be?

"I hope nothing has happened to Gretchen," suggested Eugen, for Gretchen, his sister, was the one permanently strong love of Karl's heart.

"Oh, no! _Das Madel_ is very well, and getting on in her cla.s.ses."

"Then what is it?"